The last week’s outage of Bank Syariah Indonesia (BSI) in Aceh was caused by cyber attacks. A ransomware attack also follows the problems that lasted for a week. As one of the available bank services in Aceh, this left the people of Aceh stranded without any method to withdraw their money. This article will explore how this detrimental event that cost millions of rupiah could happen.
On Monday, the 8th of May, the service of Bank Syariah Indonesia went down. This event would later continue for a week, and put the people of Aceh in a condition where they could not withdraw their money or use any cashless transaction. The Bank Syariah Indonesia outage later was revealed to be caused by a cyber attack.
Though, the public has not know yet the causes behind the irresponsible attack on the Bank Syariah Indonesia system. BSI commented on the event by saying that they still need time to do an audit and digital forensics to find out more details about the event. What is known until right now is that the main focus of this problem is the hacker and not the vulnerabilities in Bank Syariah Indonesia’s system.
After BSI’s system successfully being restored back, new news came up that 15 million data of its users were leaked online, and being used as a ransom. This data includes BSI’s users’ addresses, amount of money, pin number, and so on. Unfortunately, this problem does not only affect its users, but also BSI’s employees with their NDA, legal documents, and more. Unlike the previous attack, now the public knows the cause behind this attack. Bank Syariah Indonesia was attacked by LockBit 3.0.
LockBit or also known as ABCD is a type of ransomware that can block access to a user’s computer/data, then make the data a ransom in exchange for money. LockBit functions as a Ransomware-as-a-Service model, which means that LockBit attacks are being paid by someone to the operators who developed the ransomware. All data will then be encrypted throughout the network. What is scary about LockBit is this type of ransomware spread on its own like a virus, and it is designed to be automated during its process.
The first access to the user’s computer/data is through remote desktop protocol exploitation, phishing campaigns, abuse of valid accounts, and so on. Quoted to Industrial cybersecurity firm, Dragos, 189 ransomware detected against crucial sectors in Q4 2022 came from LockBit 3.0, and that was 21% of that period of time. LockBit also became the most active ransomware in 2022, and with 300 known victims in 2023.
A banking system with a huge amount of its users’ data should be safe from cyber threats. Especially in a special region like Aceh where conventional banks cannot operate. The attack on Bank Syariah Indonesia is one example of how cyber attacks should not be handled playfully. The attack not only render the company’s reputation into a bad name, but also crash down the province’s economy, and disadvantaged a lot of people.
Although LockBit 3.0 is a threatening threat and already impacted many big international companies, it does not mean that this threat is unavoidable. Thickening the company’s system, and putting a mindset that the slightest cyber threats or any inconveniences that show up on the system should be treated ASAP could help the company from falling as a cyber threats victim.
Read our other works:
• All the New Things in the OWASP Top 10 2021
• Domain-domain Baru ZIP Memunculkan Debat di Antara Para Ahli Cybersecurity
References:
• https://www.liputan6.com/tekno/read/5288820/apa-itu-ransomware-lockbit-30-yang-menyerang-bsi
• https://thehackernews.com/2023/03/lockbit-30-ransomware-inside.html
